walkingshadow has produced the most perfect post for my current mood so I am pointing to it so that all may enjoy:

How To Tell If Your Pain is ~Manpain~

(in a tv/fannish context, obvs)

+ Also, yesterday out of curiosity and the fact I am firmly in procrastination-mode, I watched Misfits, that new ~Skins-meets-Heroes~ crossover thing on E4? (I was warned, and yet.) OMG WHOSE IDEA WAS THAT. WHO GREENLIGHTED THAT. WHO ACTUALLY THOUGHT THAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA. OH MY GOD. It may qualify as the single most offensive television program I have ever seen. I'm warning you now, don't touch it. Heed this warning as I failed to heed it. Others have described why better than I can.

Guess who wrote and created it, I notice? Howard Overman. The same Howard Overman who occasionally writes for Merlin. He's written good episodes of Merlin, I would add. idek.

+ Did I mention I'm in procrastination mode? Smutty Claus in a week, Camelot Solstice the week after that. Someone please, kick me in the ass. No, seriously.

+ I hope you're all having a great day. ♥

obligatory holiday card post pointage. I'll probably get on that this weekend. If I've missed your post, lemme know.

+ Thanks to everyone who left me birthday wishes yesterday! Tweets, PMs, emails, v-gifts, facebook wall thingies, LJ posts and comments - I really rather love you guys. ♥♥♥♥ And I had a great day, btw. :D

+ miakun wrote me happy Merls fic what has Gwen/Morgana and OT4 at the same time! Go looky!

+ Yuletide signups! I'm excited but a little freaked out by them. I have the fandoms I nominated, but there are so many more to choose from and I don't know where to start! I'm going to think on it a bit more before I sign up for reals.

+ That's all for today. I have to give a presentation tomorrow at work, but I only have half a day to work on it because we all have to go to this award ceremony/holiday party/contract renewal celebration thing. Free food and the possibility of heading home early, always good.

+ Has anyone tried the Write or Die desktop app? Worth the ten bucks? I like the regular version.

+ I want to share this vid, most recently picked up at deepad's journal.



Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie giving a talk about 'The Danger of a Single Story'


On reading, writing, and how the stories we're exposed to can shape our perspectives. It's eighteen minutes long, but more than worth a listen.

The problem with the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we are similar.

Word. I would quote the whole talk back at you if I could.

+ I may have created a Katie/Angel/Morgana/Gwen tumblr, for picspamming and general sharing of prettified pics, quotes, videos, gifs, and whatever else concerning the girls. If you're on tumblr, follow it! With Flowers. :D

+ Fest season is in high gear and I am sitting on my hands. I definitely don't need to be signing up for Valensmut, Wizard Love, 3 Ships (man, 3 Ships is tempting) etc. when I have yet to finish Smutty_Claus or camelotsolstice and am definitely doing Yuletide. Also, the art that's being used in the banners for hp_nextgen_fest makes me want to sign up for it, it's so pretty. *cuddles Rose and Albus and Lily and Scorpius* But that is a ridiculous reason to sign up for an exchange if ever there was one, so I'm not, you know, going to. But you all should, if you're inclined, they look like much fun even if I don't think the stress would be good for me.

+ merlin_femslash. Need I say more? Also, merlin_cliche. Because magic unicorns made them do it, and it was good.

+ Art rec: Arthur/Gwen/Merlin film-noir THEY ARE SO HOT I CAN'T TAKE IT. And it's completely safe for work. The accompanying kinkmeme ficlet? Definitely not for the kids.

+ Fic rec: I've been reading a lot of lovely things lately, which reminds me how much I fail at my recs-listing, but here's one real quick: Please (NC-17) by blackmamba_esq. Kinky Arthur/Gwen. Dom!Gwen hits buttons I didn't even know I had.

+ I've been reading Glee fic. Kurt/Puck and Quinn/Rachel. Oh yeah. (Thanks, Inell.)

+ Apparently Christian Bale had TOM CRUISE in mind when getting into Patrick Bateman's character for American Psycho. brb loling forever.

+ I am having a good day at work. Stuff is working. :D Hope everyone is doing well - hugs to everyone who needs them. ♥

I always feel like when I make a ranty post, I should make up for it if only to cleanse my own palate, so, a linkspam:

+ ETA: Mirroring my last post, Celebrities NOT supporting Polanski.

+ irrel drew Arthur, Gwen and Merlin of prettiness, and at the bottom of the post is a sketch of Morgana braiding Gwen's hair and it's making me happier than happy.

+ fiiishy's writing Merlin fic now, which also makes me happy, and she wrote what Morgana was up to in The Once And Future HBIC. (the last episode, which presumably I will stop re-watching at some point.) Hi personal canon! Go tell her not to be nervous.

+ Sesame Street does "Mad Men." Hee.

+ I caught up on Glee, and while I want less Will and his drama, I must have watched Kurt (and the football team) do the Single Ladies dance 8 times in a row. Each. It took me like two hours to watch that episode.

+ Tumblr picspams. I'm especially in love with Made of Gold, all Bradley/Angel/Arthur/Gwen all the time. fuckyeahmerlin, colinmorgan and bradley-james are also made of awesome. I'm tempted to start an Angel/Katie/Gwen/Morgana tumblr called ... idk, flowersftw or something. SEE IF I DON'T.

+ Actually, I can't, but you can thank such_heights for putting the song in my head. She did a Merlin vid yesterday that is epicness, go looky.

+ Mom's home from the hospital! It's mostly good, she feels okay and is in good spirits, but she's going to need to start seeing a cardiologist regularly. :/

+ I have so much to do. Went shopping earlier, which took up some time and I spent too much money, but I do have new shoes. Now I have to do some serious cleaning because this week has been crazy and I haven't had time, and tomorrow morning I'm going down to help straighten up Mom's house; she's having her physical therapist come by and wants things to be neat. And then inell will be driving up (Yay!) and then we're meeting seakisst and bratkartoffel for a movie or something else that's fun. (Yay!)

+ MERLIN IN TWO DAYS. You have NO IDEA (okay so you may have some idea) HOW EXCITED I AM ABOUT THE NEW SEASON. All signs point to more of the girls, awesome new plots, plenty of slashy funtimes, MORE OF THE GIRLS, and basically my cracky show will be back in my life.

I AM EXCITE

Would do some sort of spam to celebrate but it will prove FAR too diverting and others have already done epic picspams from the latest trailer - but here's the trailer anyway for those who haven't seen it yet or for those who want to see it again not that I've seen it fifteen times or anything:

( two minutes of sheer gorgeousness and a couple of gifs under the cut )

So, Caster Semenya's been placed on suicide watch.

She's eighteen fucking years old. I certainly hope the press and the people currently chewing her up and spitting her out as if the fact that she's not like them means she's there for their consumption, to satisfy their curiosity and damn her feelings, are pleased with themselves.

In light of that, would just like to point to karnythia's post on Race, Gender and the Oppressive Public Gaze.

+ I couldn't watch True Blood last night; will catch up when I get home. Hopefully I can keep avoiding spoilers.

+ I did catch Mad Men, which was the best episode yet, though some parts were ...jarring to stay the least. (What was WRONG with people back then? O_o) Anyway, Peggy and Joan continue to own my soul and I continue to watch the show with a mixture of squee and laughter and sadness and irritation and near-palpable tenseness.

+ The party post at camelot_fleet is still going and there are 600 comments or something. There's also a lot of commentfic and it's all fantastic. Gwen/Morgana and Gwen/Merlin and Morgana/Merlin and Uther/Dragon and Uther/Gaius and Arthur/Merlin/Morgana and Hunith/Arthur and Gwen/Nimueh and OT4 and Arthur/Gwen and and and I can't even remember. I'll re-post mine later, methinks.

+ I am recommending it all, but I have to single out this Gwen art, by yue_ix -- it's modern AU and she is a mechanic and it is BEAUTIFUL because her coveralls are down and she has freckles and a wrench and a tool belt and there's her HAIR and her top and the colors and she's wiping sweat off her brow and good lord it is the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. And I should link to it, probably.

+ The new tagline for Merlin s2 is "You can't escape destiny." Why does that scare me? :P

+ ETA: Random 'WHOA' -- Disney is buying Marvel? What is this?

+ Deadline for hermionebigbang is next Sunday! We're excitedly waiting for the rest of the fics and art and we kind of have a lot of work to do. But we'll get it done and it'll be great. Posting for that starts on 19 September.

+ Hope everyone's getting their weeks off to a good start. After work, I've got coursework to get done for tomorrow, and betaing to do, and I should probably TRY to finish my reel_merlin.

Go read sarahtales' Ladies, Please (Carry On Being Awesome). An interesting look at how many of us see women in fiction, how many of us might want to try seeing women in fiction. How would we perceive Harry Potter if he were Harriet instead? Why do we often hold women to different standards?

Money quote:

"The femme fatales, the ninja ladies, the shy girls, the chatterboxes, the ones several guys wanted, the ones none of the guys wanted, the heroines, the sassy sidekicks, the girl the hero fell in love with in one episode we never saw again, the girl who wanted a guy she didn't get, the girl who was with a ton of different guys, the girl who was devoted to her job, the girl who was into other ladies, the murder victim, the tomboy, the feisty redhead, the dumb blonde. There was never anything wrong with any of them.

It's worth it to recognise that we're all okay. We were always okay."

♥

Speaking of awesome, take a look at Gwen in series 2 of Merlin. Just freaking look at her. My excitement for the new season has officially reached fever pitch, though I need more Morgana promos too! Preferably one of her and Gwen together, being lovely. *nod*

(and oh, oh, series 2 news. Gwen-ness. Arthurness. Cracked-out plots. The cast playing hide-and-seek in the courtyard. I. I can't even. I just. ♥)

Bear with me, ya'll. Another meta rec, if you please:

liviapenn on Uhura, and how if you're going to write her off as unessential to the plot, you have to do the same thing to McCoy because they have nearly the exact same role when it comes to Spock and Kirk, respectively.

Basically, probably my favorite meta on this whole thing. It's not Bones-bashing either, at all; it's sense-making and perspective-giving. He kind of gets worse treatment in the film than Uhura compared to their roles in TOS, but they both contribute to the group dynamic in almost the same way, except that Uhura got to do something that started the plot rolling at least. Read the whole thing if you care about any of this, but the money line: I have not seen a single comment-- not ONE-- complaining "aw, why was Bones such a loser in this, we didn't get to see his SKILLS, he never got to do anything but emotionally support Kirk." When there actually would be serious grounds for complaint there. He didn't get to perform surgery or figure out some cool cure for a disease or anything like that. He was "reduced" to being "just" Kirk's best friend. (Please note the extremely ironic "".)

(But! Bones is love, obviously, so instead of writing anyone off, dudes, just accept that they are the OT4 of ST2009. TRUFAX. ♥♥♥ I want OT4 fic now.)

ST Reboot people: Do you understand how awesome Cadet Gaila is? I feel strongly about this. I mean, Uhura is my one true love, obviously, but we can talk about her later. I want to pimp out the green redheaded awesomeness that is Gaila for a second. I mean. She's from Orion, and she's in Starfleet; this alone is a big effing deal. Because yeah, she gets laid a lot, and she is clearly competent and knows her shit or she wouldn't be there. She's like Kirk, but green and a girl. :P There should be no doubling of standards in her case. She's intelligent and cool and I choose to think she was pretty good friends with Uhura, not just her roommate.

Orion women are freaking sex slaves and objects for the most part, in old school canon, and the writers have speculated that Gaila was in slavery like the others, but escaped. There is so much fic potential here and I would love to know more about her. And of course, as with Uhura, she is being hated upon in some sections of the blogosphere. But! There are people writing her. She and Uhura, two of the few women in the film, are being written about, wtf I love this fandom. I need to share.

Pimpage:

taraljc is hosting IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN: THE DOOD, GAILA IS AWESOME COMMENTFIC EXTRAVAGANZA on her LJ. In it, you will find fic recs, comment fic, and the most awesome macro to ever awesome. Go read and play! It cannot survive without us.

seriousfic has probably the best Gaila I've read yet, and has written Academic Discourse in which there is character study with Gaila at the Academy with Uhura and Kirk and awesome. She also wrote Going Down, most-movie Gaila/Kirk.

taraljc wrote House Rules, Uhura and Gaila gen that I would draw hearts around if I could.

yahtzee63 wrote Awkward, more Kirk and Gaila post-movie.

Now. With that said, I think I'm going to see if I can't put Gaila and Uhura into some kind of fic for posting. XP

I will probably post more Merlin rarepair recs soonish (but slow fandom is slow right now so I don't have that much compiled since last time) but, in the meantime, if you like AUs, check out Rewriting The Old Language by zempasuchil. Merlin, Morgana, Arthur, and Gwen all live their own revolution within a revolution; they defy the desire of the cloture of metaphysics to “make the definition coincide with the defined, the ‘father’ with the ‘son’.” 8207 words, rated PG.

I thought it was brilliant, one of the more original AUs I've read in this fandom, with all this social theory threaded throughout, and change and revolution and idk how much sense that makes but it was really cool. It's very subtly OT4 with whisperings of a bunch of pairings and the relationships between Morgana and Arthur, Merlin and Gwen and Gwen and Morgana especially were awesome. Give it a shot!

Also, Trek recs to come, and I want to rec some of my favorite HP fics from the spring exchanges. ♥

I have been collecting links to particularly awesome Trek-related things that I've been reading, and will do some sort of rec post very soon, but I wanted to point to one real quick, and that is this essay on Uhura by taraljc that I read on my lunch break.

So it's not a fic at all, but meta on the women in the film. A different perspective on the common wisdom that seems to be going around in which there is headdesking over what Abrams did with the women and their relationships to the men. I've participated in this, as have many people I've seen around LJ. I can't say more without spoiling, but if you watch for the girls as I tend to do, it's a good read. It is, of course, very spoilery for the whole film, and I found it really refreshing and it made me think differently about a few things. I also came out of it fangirling Uhura even more than I was, which I didn't think was possible. XP I also really want to see the film again.

Yay for meta! If anyone wants to talk about it here, feel free to comment. *g*

eta: Also! 10 things you should probably know about Star Trek.